


Forgiveness

by CaliHart



Series: Mandatory Fun Day [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Deaf Clint Barton, Forgiveness, Gen, Pre-Slash, Winter Soldier Clint Barton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-12 05:28:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20994938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaliHart/pseuds/CaliHart
Summary: Clint Barton goes missing after the fall of the Insight helicarriers. Sometimes it takes a Soldier to find a Soldier.





	Forgiveness

**Author's Note:**

> For the Clint Barton Bingo, square "Forgiveness", and for Mandatory Fun Day, WS!Clint. I've actually had three ideas for WS!Clint but the others are slower in coming

Natasha shows up on Sam’s doorstep two weeks after the helicarriers crash into the Potomac, face white, hair tousled, and a phone clutched in her hand. 

“I can’t find Clint,” she says. 

~~

That’s how it starts. 

When Sam, Steve, and Natasha track down Clint’s trail the next week, Steve having reluctantly delayed the search for Bucky, all they find at the end is that he’s seemingly vanished. They can’t find a trace of him anywhere. His phone lies uncharged in his apartment, his dog was off with someone else, and none of the neighbors in his apartment building saw anything happen. The last any of them knew, after having returned slightly beat up when Natasha’s data dump blew his cover, he was off to the range with his bow, and he just never returned. 

Steve and Sam can see her struggling to hide her emotions, knowing she’s likely laying some blame on herself. 

According to the people at the range, Clint never arrived. Cameras between the two buildings were wiped, so there’s no footage of Clint passing through, no way to find out what happened to him, and no witnesses. It’s a dead end. 

That’s the last they hear of him for two years. 

~~

WINTER SOLDIER WANTED FOR BOMBING IN VIENNA

~~

“I know you’re nervous...and you have plenty of reason to be. But you’re lying.” 

“I wasn’t in Vienna, I don’t do that anymore.”

“Well the people who think you did are coming here now. They’re not planning on taking you alive.” 

“They’ll have to catch me first.”

~~

“Well done, my Soldier. No one suspects Hydra’s hand in the bombing. The chase across Bucharest proves that much. Perhaps when they capture him we can smuggle our first Soldier out of their hands; we have friends in Berlin. Cut off one head, two more shall take its place.” 

“...”

“Soldier? Can you—can he hear me?” 

“His hearing aids are functional, but his hearing may have been damaged by the blast.” 

“What I wouldn’t give to have...fine, fine. Get him ready for the next mission. Dismissed.” 

The Soldier shakes the blond hair out of his face and reaches up to adjust his hearing aid as the handler walks away. 

“Hail Hydra.” 

~~

Bucky slips away from the patrols with difficulty. It was easier when the Winter Soldier was just a ghost story; he could blend in with crowds and no one expected to see him. He ducks into a store and buys a cheap box of temporary blond hair dye, uses it in the bathroom of a convenience store two blocks away, sheds some layers, picks up a new jacket, trades in his hat and gets a pair of sunglasses. Add a few differences to his posture and gait and within an hour he’s a different person. 

With that, he steals a car and makes it south across the border into Bulgaria in another two hours, and from there heads to the nearest airport with one of his fake passports. The bombing was in Vienna, and they were planning to take him to Berlin for holding. It’s most likely the people that were really behind the bombing are somewhere between the two. 

Bucky gets a flight to Prague. 

~~

Steve sits at the table, idly tapping the surface in frustration. Sam gets ushered in by Sharon, and then Natasha follows. 

“We’ve been reviewing the footage, trying to track down Barnes,” Sharon says, turning and bringing the tv screen to life with a click of the remote. She plays the short clip they have of the bomber, and then another of Bucky from the same general angle, before pulling up side by side shots. Steve sits up straight, frowning, and Sam glances at him. 

“So, what?” Sam asks. 

“They don’t move the same,” Steve says, studying the images. 

“Right,” Sharon says. “Barnes has a very distinctive walk, most likely compensating for the weight of the arm, but since breaking free from Hydra he has gone from almost stomping his way around to having a very light step. The bomber reflects his gait, which he had as the Winter Soldier, but not this lighter step.” 

Natasha shifts her weight where she leans against the wall and Steve flicks his eyes over to her. “What is it?” he asks. 

Natasha eyes him and then looks at the screen. “It’s...familiar.” 

“How familiar?” Sam asks. 

Natasha sighs and looks at them both. “I think it might be Clint.” 

~~

Within half an hour of arriving in Prague, Bucky has become yet another person, rented a car, and acquired a burner phone. He checks the news and the internet, and then begins the process of hunting down Hydra. People have been hunting them for years, but no one knows their methods better than Bucky does, and the whole thing has their dirty fingerprints all over it. 

He turns toward the German border. 

~~

“Where is he? I thought the German forces would have him by now.” 

“He slipped away from them, sir. He’s gone missing.” 

“I don’t like this. I want the Soldier back.” 

“...”

“You. My Summer Soldier. __Go find him__.” 

“Yes sir.” 

~~

In the end, Bucky doesn’t have to find them, because they find him first. He feels eyes on his back while scoping out a market in Dresden. He acts casual, ducks out of sight down an alley, and steps out into a more deserted street only to immediately jerk backwards to dodge a bullet. An arrow embeds itself in his shoulder a second later. Bucky grunts, rips it out, and takes off running, trying to stay out of sight. A shadow follows him on the rooftops, one he isn’t quite familiar with. 

Whoever is hunting him alternates shooting bullets, which always hit just shy of him and send people screaming and ducking for cover, and arrows that embed themselves in his arm and legs. He rips them out as fast as he can, but he still feels himself slowing. A bullet pings off his left hand and he flinches to the right, just in time for another arrow to sink into his right shoulder. It’s then he realizes the shooter is herding him, using the bullets to drive him into the path of the arrows. 

Before he can try to yank out the arrow, another sinks into the back of his left calf and sends him to his knees. The shadow leaps off the nearest building and lands close, walking over with another arrow drawn. Things are starting to go fuzzy, but Bucky makes a grab at the shadow’s ankle, yanking his leg out from under him. The man staggers, the bow whips across Bucky’s face, and things go dark. 

~~

“We’ve got a hit,” Natasha says, descending on Sam, Steve, and Sharon. “A man matching Barnes’s description with blond hair was seen evading a shooter in Dresden until the shooter confronted him and knocked him out. They got into a van with no plates and drove away.” She looks up at them, mouth a thin line. “The shooter was using arrows.” 

~~

Bucky wakes up in a dim, damp, abandoned warehouse, tied to a chair. It’s made of metal, and there are metal cuffs connecting his wrists behind his back, but he’s bound to the chair with simple ropes, which seems odd. A man stands off to his right, and Bucky rolls his head to look at him. 

He’s standing with his arms crossed (bare arms—__impressive__ bare arms), one hip cocked, overgrown and dirty blond hair hanging around his face. Dressed all in black, several handguns are visible on his body, a quiver of arrows just peeking out over his shoulder. 

“Don’t do this,” Bucky croaks, mouth dry. Those arrows must have been coated with the special anesthetic Hydra used to knock him out. It always left his mouth dry. 

“Hydra wants their asset back,” the man answers, voice flat. 

“Why do they need me when they have you? If you can even take __me __down, you must be good enough for them,” Bucky says, licking his lips uselessly. 

The man shifts restlessly. “Hydra wants their asset back,” he repeats. 

“What do you want?” Bucky asks. “I broke their programming once, I could help you do it.” 

“It doesn’t matter what I want.” 

“Doesn’t it? You could be free again.” Bucky shakes his head, still feeling the effects of the anesthesia a little. “You didn’t always belong to Hydra. They only got you, what, two years ago? I know I never saw you with them. Who are you anyway?” 

“I am the Summer Soldier.” 

Bucky laughs, dry and wheezy, tilting his head back. “Of course. My sunlight counterpart. They might as well have called you the sunshine patriot. Only then they might have guessed you’d one day leave them.” He rolls his head again. “Come on, let me help you. We can both get out of here...Clint.” 

“I…” the man puts a hand to his head, stumbling back a step and grimacing. “Who are you?” 

“You don’t know me, but I know you,” Bucky says. “Clint Barton, codename Hawkeye, loyal agent of SHIELD until you realized Hydra was hiding in their midst. Best friend of Natasha Romanov, the Black Widow, and part of the team known as the Avengers. You’re a superhero...and one of the best marksmen in the world.” 

“I __am__ the best,” he argues, and then pauses. 

“How do you know that?” Bucky tilts his head. “Come on, Clint. Let me help you out. We can both get out of this,” he tries. 

Clint, because that is who it is, stalks over with anger on his face. He raises a hand with a knife twirling between his fingers. “Shut up,” he growls. 

Bucky tilts his head, shakes his hair out of his face, and gives him a stubborn look. “Make me,” he says. Clint steps closer to loom over him and that’s when Bucky makes his move. 

The ropes snap in an instant. He kicks the chair out from under him, right into Clint’s legs, making him stumble, and then he slams into him. His hands are still bound behind him, unable to get free without Bucky dislocating something, which he’d really prefer not to do. But it’s far from the first time he’s been in a fight without his hands available. 

He hooks a foot behind Clint’s knee and yanks, gets his knee on Clint’s chest and bears him down to the floor with his weight. Bucky slides his knee up to get it on Clint’s throat while the other digs into his stomach. It’s a precarious position, so even though Clint chokes when he tries to heave himself up, he manages to twist and dislodges Bucky. Bucky rolls away while Clint goes for a gun, kicking both of Clint’s wrists to make him drop the weapons. He dislocates his thumb to slip out of his cuffs and throws himself at Clint. They’re both good at hand to hand, but Bucky has weight and years of experience on him. While they wrestle, Bucky manages to slip around behind him, legs wrapped around his waist and arms around his throat in a chokehold. 

“Come on, Clint, I know you’re in there. You can break free of this. You’re a good man, you can’t let Hydra win,” Bucky says, holding tight as Clint struggles. Unconsciously, he frees one hand and gently runs it through Clint’s hair, smoothing out the tangles. “You’re better than this, I know you are. Come on. What would your friends say?” 

“No,” Clint chokes out, tugging ineffectually at his arm. “I—can’t—”

“You know what they’d say?” Bucky asks, tightening his hold and staring up at the ceiling as Clint twitches and gasps. “They’d forgive you. You just have to give them the chance.” Clint twitches a few more times and goes still. Bucky waits a moment to make sure he’s really out before letting go. 

“Just give them the chance,” he murmurs. 

~~

Natasha, Sharon, Sam, and Steve are still looking for signs of either Bucky or the bomber when someone with shaggy blond hair shows up on their doorstep. Natasha opens the door with a gun up and there’s Clint, giving her a tired smile from under his hair. 

“Hey, Nat. Long time, no see.” 

~~

Later, after Clint’s been cleared and Zemo’s been arrested and everything is taken care of, Clint comes up to Steve alone. 

“Hey, I...Bucky, he asked me to give this to you.” He holds out a tattered scrap of paper folded over on itself. As soon as Steve takes it, Clint gives him an awkward smile and walks away. 

Steve takes a deep breath and unfolds it, turning it over until the words are upright. 

_‘I know you, Steve. You’re my friend. _

_‘I’m sorry, but I’m not ready to come in yet. _

_‘Forgive me?’_


End file.
